UMass Memorial Health Care and nurses at its Memorial and Hahnemann campuses have agreed to a contract, reducing the number of nurses that may go on strike Thursday.

A strike remains possible because nurses at the hospital group's largest facility, the University Campus, did not reach a settlement. Those talks are scheduled to resume Monday, but UMass Memorial Health Care management said late Friday that the financial package has already been reduced because of required preparations to bring in replacement nurses.

The 2,000 nurses at the three campuses are represented by two separate unions under the umbrella of the Massachusetts Nurses Association. The Memorial/Hahnemann nurses and the University nurses negotiate separately with hospital management. Of the 2,000 nurses, 1,100 work at the University Campus.

“We would like to update you on the negotiations with the Massachusetts Nurses Association. Today, May 17, the Medical Center reached an agreement with the MNA-Memorial/Hahnemann Bargaining Unit,” Dr. Charles Cavagnaro, interim president of UMass Memorial Medical Center, wrote in an email to staff Friday morning. “We greatly appreciate the effort and hard work of the MNA Memorial/Hahnemann bargaining committee.”

In a media statement late Friday, UMass Memorial Health Care CEO and President Dr. Eric Dickson said because the MNA-University bargaining unit had not revoked its strike notice, the Medical Center was forced to proceed with preparations for a strike.

“Under the terms of the contract we have with the replacement staffing agency, we had to transfer today (Friday) over $4 million to the agency to provide nurses for the University Campus strike scheduled May 23,” he said.

The offer accepted by MNA Memorial/Hahnemann nurses is no longer available to the University Campus unit, he said.

“Instead, their offer contains a decreased economic package which reflects the cost of having to bring in replacement nurses for a minimum of five days,” he said. “This is disappointing because our offer was fair and we had hoped it would have put an end to the negotiations.”

David Schildmeier, MNA spokesman, said Friday that the Memorial and Hahnemann nurses reached an agreement at 3 a.m., after 20 hours of negotiating with a federal mediator.

“They are pleased to have settled their contract,” he said, noting that the strike notice was withdrawn for those two campuses.

“At University, they did not reach an agreement, and have scheduled another bargaining session for Monday,” he said. The strike notice is still in effect for the University campus, he said.

UMass Memorial nurses had notified hospital management that they intended to strike at 6 a.m. May 23 if their demands for increased staffing at all three campuses were not met.

Hospital management has indicated that it will lock out the nurses for an additional four days, so that University nurses would not return to work until May 28 — over Memorial Day weekend.

“It would be irresponsible for the Medical Center to pay the costs of these replacement nurses and return striking nurses to work before the expiration of the five-day period,” Dr. Dickson wrote in a letter to nurses last week.

The contract signed by the Memorial and Hahnemann nurses is for three years, and would expire in April 2015. One year is retroactive, as the nurses have been working without a contract since last April.

According to UMass Memorial management, the contract calls for a 2.5 percent wage increase that would be immediate, and a 2 percent increase that would go into effect next April.

Hospital management also met most of the nurses' demands on staffing levels, which was a sticking point in the negotiations. The contract stipulates that day, evening and night shift nurses should care for no more than five patients at a time. Some day shift nurses in some departments could have patient loads as low as four-to-one, according to the contract.

Gone from the contract were references to six-to-one ratios for some shifts and departments, which had been in the last, best and final offer from UMass Memorial to the nurses.

Dr. Dickson, a UMass Memorial Medical Center emergency physician who recently took over the president and CEO posts, said the hospital group is pleased that Memorial and Hahnemann have signed a contract.

“This is a clear sign that this is a partnership between us and the nurses to keep our patients safe, and that we are here for the long term,” he said. “Both parties walked away smiling.”

Dr. Dickson stressed that the University Campus will be safe for patients on May 23, even if the University nurses are not on the job. He said he would be sending out information in the coming days about work to reduce the number of inpatients on the University Campus.

“We would like to keep patients safe with our nurses, but we will keep them safe with replacement nurses, if we have to,” he said.

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